Sharif Digital Repository

This work investigates the species separation in the rarefied flow of the argon-helium mixture through convergent-divergent micronozzles. Imposing a molecular mass ratio in the order of 10, the flow of this mixture can lead to the formation of serious nonhomogeneous phenomena such as the species separation. This study is performed in the ranges of 2.0-4.0 for the geometrical expansion ratio, 200-400 K for the wall temperature, and 0.003-1.454 for the inlet Knudsen number. The effects of these parameters are examined on the separative performances of micronozzle. The direct simulation Monte Carlo method is selected as the solution method because it can provide reliable solutions in the... 

Pavement distress is a major contributor to overall road quality degradation. Maintaining roadways with the use of a Pavement Management System requires an extensive and up-to-date inventory of the many types of roadway distress. Such inventory for a road network can be labor-intensive and time-consuming to create. This study introduces a novel method, called Hybrid Method, to detect asphalt pavement surface cracks based on 2D images. Hybrid Method consists of two separate techniques, proposed by this study, which are combined to detect cracks. The first is a supervised learning-based technique which requires annotated images. This approach utilizes the Local Binary Pattern (LBP) as a... 

In this research, the possibility of producing asphalt mixtures containing Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) that perform well from both fatigue and rutting points of view was studied. For this, seven asphalt mixtures with varying RAP percentage and total binder content were produced. All other variables, including the gradation and binder type, were kept constant. To better control for the production variables, the mixtures were produced in the laboratory. Fatigue and rutting properties of the mixtures were evaluated using the Simplified Viscoelastic Continuum Damage (S-VECD) model and Triaxial Stress Sweep (TSS) test, respectively. Next, FlexPAVETM software was utilized to predict the... 

Asphalt Pavement Alliance (APA) created the Perpetual Pavement Award program in 2001. This program requires that the roadway has at least 35 years of service at the time of award and had experienced no structural failures. In addition, the program limits candidate roadways to those that have not received more than 100 mm of new asphalt nor have been resurfaced at a frequency exceeding 13 years. Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) currently owns the record for the most award winners and has received an award every year from 2002 through 2017. This study reviews all the award-winning roadways in Minnesota to determine common material, design factors and considerations which may have... 

This study investigated the effect of gilsonite and Styrene-Butadiene-Styrene (SBS) as asphalt binder modifiers on the physical and rheological properties of asphalt binders. For this, binder tests such as penetration test, softening point, rotational viscosity (RV), Dynamic Shear Rheometer (DSR), and Bending Beam Rheometer (BBR) were conducted on the neat and modified binders. The effect of gilsonite and SBS on the binder temperature susceptibility was also investigated by measuring Penetration Index (PI), Activation Energy (AE) and Viscosity-Temperature Susceptibility (VTS) of all the study binders. Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) test was directed toward investigation of... 

The SUT-Crack dataset (Sharif University of Technology Crack Dataset) presents a collection of high-quality images depicting asphalt pavement cracks specifically designed to facilitate crack detection using various deep learning methods, including classification, object detection, segmentation, etc. During the dataset creation process, careful consideration was given to encompass all possible crack detection challenges, such as the presence of oil stains and shadows on the pavement surface along with varying lighting conditions. The dataset comprises 130 images designed specifically for segmentation and object detection tasks. Each image is accompanied by precise ground truth annotations.... 

We investigate heat transfer between parallel plates separated by liquid argon using two-dimensional molecular dynamics (MD) simulations incorporating with 6-12 Lennard-Jones potential between molecule pairs. In molecular dynamics simulation of nanoscale flows through nanochannels, it is customary to fix the wall molecules. However, this approach cannot suitably model the heat transfer between the fluid molecules and wall molecules. Alternatively, we use thermal walls constructed from the oscillating molecules, which are connected to their original positions using linear spring forces. This approach is much more effective than the one which uses a fixed lattice wall modeling to simulate the... 

The Poiseuille flow through slit-like nanochannels is investigated using the nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. To drive a dense flow through the channel, we use two self-adjusting vertical plates strategy. These plates force the liquid to flow through the nanochannel under adjustable inlet and outlet boundary conditions. Comparing with the dual-control-volume grand-canonical molecular dynamics method, the current strategy provides many advantages. The current strategy does not need particle insertion and deletion, therefore, the system dynamics would not be affected at all. Moreover, the number of particles in the simulation system is fixed due to inserting the two... 

Despite vast efforts in developing hybrid continuum-molecular methods, there has been no specific work focused on the gas mixture flow simulations including the mixing and/or separation of species. In present study, we extend a hybrid method to analyze such phenomena suitably and study the gas mixing problems in micro/nano length scales reliably. The results of current hybrid simulations are compared against the results of full-molecular simulations to evaluate the physical accuracy of developed hybrid method. The effect of continuum breakdown criterion is investigated to find out the achieved accuracy of developed hybrid simulation method from different perspectives. The current results... 

This study investigates the performance of geogrid-reinforced unbound pavement layer. In this study, geogrid was used in various layouts and numbers using three different gradation of granular materials. Light weight deflectometer (LWD) device is known as a useful tool to evaluate the stiffness of unbound pavement layers. In this study, the LWD was utilized to experimentally investigate factors affecting the performance of geogrid reinforcement, including the number of geogrids, geogrid layout, and the gradation of unbound layer. There are several parameters which affect the LWD test results including the hammer weight, the falling height, and the surface stress. The effect of these... 

This study investigates the performance of geogrid-reinforced unbound pavement layer. In this study, geogrid was used in various layouts and numbers using three different gradation of granular materials. Light weight deflectometer (LWD) device is known as a useful tool to evaluate the stiffness of unbound pavement layers. In this study, the LWD was utilized to experimentally investigate factors affecting the performance of geogrid reinforcement, including the number of geogrids, geogrid layout, and the gradation of unbound layer. There are several parameters which affect the LWD test results including the hammer weight, the falling height, and the surface stress. The effect of these... 

In this research, Linear Amplitude Sweep (LAS) test was conducted on several asphalt binders modified by different percentages of gilsonite and Styrene-Butadiene-Styrene (SBS) polymer. Asphalt mixtures were also made from some of the study binders and tested for fatigue resistance using Four-point Bending Beam (FBB) fatigue test. The results showed that a strong correlation exists between LAS and FBB rankings at all the tested strain levels. Also, SHRP binder fatigue index (G∗sinδ), as a traditional binder fatigue index, was evaluated which did not show a strong correlation with either LAS or FBB tests. It was concluded that LAS test seems to be an effective binder fatigue test in predicting...